7 things Sarah Palin must do now

Sarah Palin can be the Republican nominee in 2012. I am not saying she will be, but she can be.

Those who underestimate her do so at their own risk. She projects a tough but warm personality. Her most famous line — “You know what they say the difference is between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick!” — reflects that. She is a conservative in an increasingly conservative party.

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And though the McCain-Palin ticket went down to defeat in 2008, she has not faded away. In fact, she showed last week how easy it is for her to dominate the news cycle.

She attacked David Letterman last Wednesday for making what she called a “crude, sexist, perverted” joke about her daughter, and by Friday she was being interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and spending far more time talking about energy policy, the deficit, Israel and North Korea than about David Letterman.

True, her approval rating as governor of Alaska has dropped to 54 percent, her lowest ever, but it is not that far below Barack Obama’s national approval rating of 62 percent.

There is little doubt that Obama is the most popular politician in America (and probably the world). Yet when voters were asked last week in a Diageo/Hotline poll if they would reelect Obama today or would like to see “someone else” be elected president, Obama got 46 percent, and “someone else” got 30 percent. That’s a nice margin for Obama, but it’s not astronomical.

And someone has to run against him in 2012, if only for the sake of tradition. (We haven’t had a presidential candidate run unopposed since George Washington did it in 1789 and 1792.)

That someone could be Sarah Palin, if she does seven things right now:

1. DUMP ALASKA. She doesn’t need to run for reelection for governor in 2010 for name recognition or to get media attention. And being a governor these days is like having a target on your back. (Republican Tim Pawlenty, who has his own plans for 2012, announced earlier this month that he will not seek election to a third term as governor of Minnesota.) But there is a bigger reason for Palin to give up the governorship: Maybe you can see Russia from Alaska, but you can’t see Iowa and New Hampshire from Alaska. Alaska is too far away from where she needs to be. She can live, skimobile and hunt moose in Alaska, but she needs to spend a lot of travel time in the Lower 48 without having to run back to Juneau every week.

2. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE SMARTER THAN YOU ARE. That shouldn’t be hard, her opponents will say. OK, let them laugh. They laughed at George W. Bush when he ran for president in 2000 and at Arnold Schwarzenegger when he ran for governor of California in 2003. Both benefited from low expectations and smart staffs.